Worldwide usage of the AOL-Netscape Navigator browser hit a record low, according to outsourced Web analytics provider WebSideStory Inc. "The browser war is in fact a massacre," WebSideStory StatMarket's vice president of marketing Geoff Johnston said in a statement. "Unless AOL makes a move soon, Netscape may find itself battling Opera for the last 1 [percent] to 2 percent of the market."
Microsoft Internet Explorer's usage share now stands at 96 percent, up from 87 percent a year ago, according to data from WebSideStory's StatMarket service, which aggregates Internet user data as part of its Web site design and software optimization service. Netscape's global usage dropped from 13 percent in August 2001 to 3.4 percent this month.
Netscape Communications on Thursday launched the latest version of its Web browser amid mounting evidence that most Internet surfers are choosing Microsoft's Internet Explorer instead. The new version, dubbed Netscape 7.0, does not stray very far from the preview version unveiled in May. Still, the fanfare behind Netscape 7.0 has been muted by a report released this week asserting that IE has left Netscape with a mere 3.4 percent of the browser market, according to market researcher WebSideStory. That's down from 13 percent market share a year ago.
Microsoft is finishing work on an update to its Windows XP operating system, clearing the way for public release of the software within the next few days, sources say. In court papers filed Wednesday to document Microsoft's progress in complying with the proposed settlement, the software giant said that "in the next few days, Microsoft will release SP1 for Windows XP." Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan would not elaborate on the timing of the release, other than to say that it is "still on target for the next couple of weeks."
In addition to various fixes, Windows XP Service Pack 1 offers features to support upcoming hardware: Windows Media Center PCs and the Tablet PC. The changes supporting Windows Media Center PCs and the Tablet PC will be available only to PC manufacturers. Hewlett-Packard and some other computer makers are prepping Windows Media PCs for holiday release. These systems will include a second user interface for accessing Windows XP's digital media features via a remote control.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) continues its dominance of the Web browser market, despite recent releases by open source challenger Mozilla and its commercial sibling, Netscape 7.0, which was finalized today. According to a twice-yearly study by market researcher StatMarket, IE now controls 96 percent of the market, up from 87 percent a year ago. Netscape, meanwhile, has fallen off the charts, with just 3.4 percent of the market, down from 7 percent in March and 13 percent a year ago. And competent newcomer Mozilla, which recently saw a critical 1.0 release after years in beta, has managed to attract less than 1 percent of the market. A more recent Mozilla 1.1 release improves performance and adds a few new features.
Microsoft will be heading to court soon, but not for the wider antitrust case, which is awaiting the decision of Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. Instead, the software giant is facing two other legal challenges, by UNIX giant Sun Microsystems and the remainder of Be Inc., which once made a rival operating system, and a slew of antirust lawsuits that might be combined into a single class-action suit.
And in early October, a federal court in Baltimore will determine whether over 100 antitrust suits against Microsoft will be combined into a single class-action suit. Judge Frederick Motz of the US District Court for the District of Maryland has set an October 1 deadline for class action certification. Additionally, the judge has set an October 24 hearing date for determining whether Microsoft will be bound by the findings already issued in company's federal antitrust case. What all these court cases prove is that Microsoft's antitrust problems won't end with Kollar-Kotelly's ruling. But if the past is any indication, we can expect the software giant to emerge relatively unscathed from these problems as well. As time marches on, whatever damages Microsoft might have caused in the past seem more and more remote, thanks largely to the fast-moving nature of the PC industry.
My main mail client is Outlook 2002. This is no corporate mandate; it's just me here. I've had lots of problems with Outlook over the years and on occasion I've tried to change to another program, but I've always come back. There's just no other program that does all the key things it does. Why not?
The real key, especially in the corporate market, is to produce a client that supports Microsoft Exchange and is interoperable with Outlook for supporting e-mail, calendaring, and some other groupware features. Instead, the software industry seems more taken with the notion of replacing Exchange and leaving Outlook in place. Oracle has their Collaboration Suite and Bynari makes a number of server products that support Outlook clients.
New data on worldwide usage of Web browser software shows Netscape is once again being clobbered by rival browser Internet Explorer and now has an estimated market share of 3.4 percent, according to Internet researcher WebSideStory. This is a steep decline from the 13 percent share held by Netscape at the same time last year, said Geoff Johnston, vice president of product marketing for StatMarket, WebSideStory's Web site design and software developer service. Rival browser Internet Explorer (IE), owned by Microsoft, holds an estimated 96 percent of the market, up from 87 percent a year ago, according to WebSideStory, in San Diego.
FrontRange Solutions launched its next-generation of CRM software Wednesday, built on Microsoft's .Net architecture and targeted at financial services and manufacturers in the mid-market. GoldMine Customer IQ will provide industry-specific functionality while offering users the ability to customize their own business processes, according to officials from Colorado Springs, Colo.-based FrontRange. Built on Microsoft's .Net programming architecture, CustomerIQ uses XML to enable access to information from virtually any location and device. "We actually use common programmable objects ... so that we are interoperable with the [Microsoft] Exchange server," said Patrick Bultema, president and CEO of FrontRange. "The functionality is integrated seamlessly with Microsoft out of the box. We've got support for all of the standards that embody .Net to maximize interoperability."
Microsoft and Inktomi on Wednesday announced a product integration designed to provide immediate access to content as it is being published and managed. The integrated offering, dubbed Connect It for Microsoft Content Management Server, bridges Inktomi's Enterprise Search software and Microsoft's Content Management Server via a Java-based connector. One of the technical challenges of content management is providing timely access to freshly produced content, according to Ron Baumert, senior manager of business development at Inktomi in Foster City, Calif.
Businesses developing applications for mobile devices will soon be able to slash development time using Microsoft's .NET technology, the company says. A chief concern when writing applications for mobile devices such as personal digital assistants and mobile phones is the device's form factor. Physical design constraints such as screen size and even the type of processor chip have slowed the evolution of applications for these mobile devices. Microsoft's .NET, a suite of technologies that allows devices and software to work more easily with each other, will overcome these obstacles, says Microsoft senior technical specialist Stephen Jeffries.